CHAPTER XIX. ON UNFULFILLED PROPHECY. It was the opinion of the Gnostics that the Tempter was either the same as the God of the Old Testament, acting in opposition to the Supreme Being, or a creature and agent of this God. In contradiction to this notion, Irenæus lays down, and confirms from various portions of Scripture, that he was one of the angels, attendants upon the Supreme Being, who rebelled against him, who consummated his rebellion by seducing man from his allegiance, and who is always setting himself up as a rebel against his Maker(504). Having proved this from the past history of the world, he continues the proof by adducing the prophecies concerning Antichrist, the Millennium, and the consummation of all things(505). In this way he is led to develope his own views upon those subjects: and as his opinions on the Millennium are different from those which have prevailed subsequently, with almost universal consent in the Western Church, that portion of his Treatise is rarely found complete in our present MSS., the copyists not thinking it proper or worth their while to copy what was generally disapproved by the Church(506). Irenæus, then, regards Antichrist as a direct agent of Satan, in and by means of whom he will fulfil the great object of his rebellion, of procuring himself to be owned by mankind as their king, and worshipped as their God; by whom he will abolish all idols, and set himself up as the one idol, uniting in himself all the delusion of all the false gods who have ever existed. In him, therefore, will be literally fulfilled the prophecy of St. Paul, 2 Thess. ii. 3, 4(507); for he will literally enthrone himself in the temple of God at Jerusalem, and by oppressive methods will endeavour to exhibit himself as God, and Christ(508). Irenæus applies to this event the prophecy of Daniel concerning _the abomination of desolation_, quoted by our Lord, Matt. xxiv. 15, 16(509). He likewise applies to him what is said by Daniel of _the little horn_, in Dan. vii. 8. 20‐26; conceiving the _ten horns_ to be ten kings of different portions of the Roman Empire(510), and consequently believing that Antichrist will be a power, who will overthrow and kill three of the kings of those divisions, and reign for a space of three years and a half; during which time he will trample under foot the saints of the Most High(511). He affirms that he is the _other_, mentioned by our Lord, (John v. 43,) _who will come in his own name_; and the _unjust judge, who feared not God nor regarded men_, to whom the widowed Jerusalem will come for redress against her enemy; in consequence of which he will transfer the seat of his dominion thither. He declares him to be the _wicked king_ of Daniel, (viii. 23‐25,) who for three years and a half will put down the pure offering which the saints offer to God, i. e. the Holy Eucharist(512).